LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1971, Page 66

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

“WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST”
(The Convention Essay)

My BRETHREN IN THE LorD, grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The
forty-ninth convention of The Lutheran Church — Mis-
souri Synod is now well under way. The opening
service with its wonderful gathering of thousands, its
inspiring music, and its moving message of sin and
grace and of the church's mission is now history. Floor
committees have already prepared hundreds of resolu-
tions for your consideration. Some you have voted on.
Most must still be considered. Delegates are by now
feeling the full impact of the work to be done if the
529 pages of the Convention Workbook are to be ade-
quately dealt with. And so the convention is settling
down to the hard task of five more days of solid work,
work that will touch the lives of millions, work which
the very God of heaven and earth has laid before us.

Meanwhile the world watches. The world knows us
to be a troubled and a worried church, as are most
churches in this latter part of the 20th century. Mem-
bers of the press, ever alert to strife and discord, have
their pencils poised to record what we may say and do,
both on the convention floor and off it. Back home
millions are praying that this will be a great conven-
tion that will hear the Lord’s Word, see the glorious
opportunities He has placed before us, and move for-
ward in the power of His Spirit.

“Sent to Reconcile” — that is the theme of our con-
vention. The theme of reconciliation is lifted from one
of the most marvelous passages in all of Holy Writ, the
fifth chapter of Paul’s Second Letter to the Church at
Corinth, verse 19: “God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against
them, and entrusting to us the word of reconciliation.”

The apostle Paul goes on in verse 20 to tell us: “So
we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal
through us.” In these verses with their surrounding
context we find the heart of the Christian message and
sure words to direct us as the convention goes about
its work.

“We are ambassadors for Christ.” That is why we
are here. That is what it is all about. Paul liked to
call himself an ambassador. In Ephesians, chapter 6,
he writes from prison and designates himself an “am-
bassador in chains.” He regards himself as the repre-
sentative of a sovereign ruler with all the authority and
power that that implied. He was not a man merely
peddling his own philosophy. He spoke for God, and
he spoke with God’s authority and might.

Historians record that whenever the Roman senate
desired to bring another country into the fold of the
empire as a province, they sent to it several legates or
ambassadors to arrange the terms of peace for the
vanquished country, to determine geographical boun-
daries, and to draw up a constitution for the new
province. The ambassadors spoke for Rome, and they

67

brought the new province into the family of the Roman
Empire. They came for peaceful purposes. And I think
it is interesting that the Roman name Legatus (am-
bassador) is the word from which your name delegates
is derived.

So the Corinthians understood what Paul meant
when he spoke of being an ambassador or a legate for
Christ. Paul was sent to bring men into the glorious
kingdom of God. But in contrast to the Roman am-

Dr. Paul Zimmerman, Essayist

bassadors, he came not to subjugate but to free; not
to impose heavy taxes but to liberate. He proclaimed
the Gospel that in Christ God had reconciled the world
to Himself.

Paul is gone—he has been gone for 19 centuries.
So are the other apostles, those who knew the Lord
Jesus face to face. They have all gone to join Him
in the mansions He promised them. But inspired by
the very Spirit of God they have left the heritage of
the New Testament to join the Old--God’s own true
and powerful Word to man, also for us in the 20th
century.

The ambassador’s message of glorious reconciliation
and salvation is in our hands now, with all the power
of God’s own authority. Now we are the ambassadors
to bring men into God’s empire. God has laid on us

|
|
|
i

OR OR RAGE A SN EEE ENR ENTRIES RIR  ATE HR  OP

oR IER AR ng mi CIE IE NE DANES RENE AU